🏛️ The White House Takes Control Of Rescheduling As Virginia Forces Spanberger's Hand

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After four months of an executive order sitting on top of a bureaucracy that was not moving, the West Wing has taken operational control of rescheduling, with the Washington Post reporting that agencies have been told to prepare for imminent action and DEA planning a new administrative hearing. Virginia lawmakers have stripped the middle ground out of their adult-use bill and sent Gov. Spanberger a clean choice. Michigan's first 4/20 under the 24 percent wholesale tax came in roughly flat with three years ago, which is the story hiding underneath the celebratory number. South Carolina's hemp compromise collapsed into a conference committee the same day Charlotte breweries started counting the seven months they have left. Wisconsin, New Jersey, and a federal securities remedy round out a day where regulators are either being asked to govern better or being reminded that the rules still apply.

🏛️ White House takes the wheel on rescheduling
🌿 South Carolina's hemp standoff
🚨 A vending-machine empire unwinds

Axios and The Washington Post report that the White House has ordered federal agencies to prepare for imminent action on marijuana rescheduling and that DEA is planning a new administrative hearing to replace the stalled track inherited from the prior administration. Four days earlier, at the Oval Office signing ceremony for his psychedelics executive order, President Trump turned to an official in the room and said, "You know, they're slow-walking me on rescheduling. You're going to get it done, right?" The public complaint from the president is what shifted the process. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, in the role since Trump fired Pam Bondi on April 2nd and openly auditioning for the permanent job, has every reason to move Schedule III to the top of his execution list. Bondi's tenure is the cautionary tale. She missed a congressionally mandated January 2026 deadline on Schedule I research barriers, said nothing publicly about rescheduling for four months, and is now in the private sector. Blanche has watched that happen up close.

The White House's intervention should be read as real support and real progress. The president is now personally invested in getting this done, the acting AG has every professional incentive to deliver, and the operational pressure that was missing for four months is finally present. That is the part of the story that matters to operators planning around a post-280E world. The procedural skepticism is narrower: a new hearing means a new record, which means a new comment period and a new round of testimony. Some participants will change the date on their previous filings and submit them again. The prohibitionists will do the same. APA litigation at the back end is still likely regardless of how quickly the front end moves. Between now and a final rule, the question is whether the administration can carry both the political momentum and the administrative record to a place that survives in court. Today is the first day in four months that both look possible. (The Washington Post; Reuters; Axios)

Virginia lawmakers rejected Governor Abigail Spanberger's proposed amendments to the adult-use sales bill during the reconvened session and sent the legislation back substantially in the form the General Assembly originally passed. Legal sales would begin January 1, 2027, rather than the July 1, 2027 date Spanberger proposed, and the legislature preserved its broader transaction limits rather than the narrower version she sought. The governor now has a straightforward set of options: sign the bill, veto it, or let it become law without her signature. A veto keeps Virginia in the same posture it has occupied for years, with possession legal and regulated commerce absent, and leaves the next legislative window to take up the question again. Watch how the governor frames her decision publicly over the coming days. A signing statement flagging concerns while signing tells a different story than a veto, and both tell a different story than letting it lapse. (Marijuana Moment; VPM)

📊 A new Economist/YouGov poll puts national support for legalization at 59 percent, with 28 percent opposed, and majorities across Democrats, independents, and Republicans. Support has been durable at roughly this level for several years now. The polling has stopped climbing, which suggests the political unlock for federal action will come from institutional capacity and coalition politics rather than from public opinion shifting further. (Marijuana Moment; YouGov/The Economist)

Michigan retailers rang up $20.4 million in adult-use sales on Monday, up 27 percent over last year when 4/20 fell on Easter. The comparison worth making is against 2023, when 4/20 also fell on a weekday and produced $20.7 million. Three years of market expansion, roughly flat daily sales. The context underneath the number: this was Michigan's first 4/20 under the new 24 percent wholesale tax that took effect January 1st, and CRA spokesman David Harns told the Detroit News the tax had not yet flowed through to consumers because retailers are still selling pre-tax inventory. Michigan Cannabis Industry Association director Robin Schneider says the tax is already driving job losses and facility closures. Michigan closed 2025 with 2,171 active licenses, down 85 from the prior year, the first year-over-year decline since adult-use launched. The real read on the tax will not come from 4/20 numbers. It will come from Q3 and Q4 data once retailers are pricing the tax into their shelves, and that data is the one policymakers in other states with tax-structure debates should be watching. (The Detroit News)

New reporting out of Wisconsin refreshes the border-subsidy argument with numbers the state's nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau has been documenting since 2023. Illinois collected $36.1 million in cannabis tax revenue from sales to Wisconsin residents, based on five of the six Illinois counties bordering Wisconsin, with about 41.5 percent of dispensary sales in those counties going to out-of-state buyers. Michigan picked up another $5.8 million. The figures are older than the news peg suggests, but the political calendar is what changed. Wisconsin loses its governor, Assembly speaker, and Senate majority leader next January, and all three chose not to seek reelection. The incoming leadership set will inherit the legalization argument fresh, with the fiscal framing now easier to quantify than it was in previous sessions. Whether that reshapes the vote count depends on who fills those three seats and how the new Republican caucus reads the politics. Until then, the money continues to move across the border on a predictable schedule. (WBAY; Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau)

🧪 A High Times essay by economist Rolando García argues that prohibition narratives survive in subscriber-driven media long after their factual predictions fail, because outrage pays better than calibration. The useful signal here is not the swipe at any one commentator. It is the reminder that bad cannabis narratives continue shaping what legislators, donors, and local officials believe they are managing, even when the underlying risk story has already collapsed. (High Times)

New Jersey prosecutors say Ben Gross, a 40-year-old Toms River vending machine owner, ran roughly 80 unlicensed marijuana vending machines under the name Barbwire, placed in rented retail space across the state. The two-year joint investigation by the Ocean County and Monmouth County Prosecutor's Offices culminated last week with search warrants at residences in Toms River, Lakewood, and Jackson, a Manchester Township warehouse, and more than 80 business locations renting shelf space for the machines. Detectives seized the machines, more than 100 pounds of flower, five pounds of hashish, several hundred pounds of THC edibles, and vape products. Three additional arrests were made at the warehouse. Gross was charged with maintaining a controlled dangerous substance facility. Operations at this scale inside a legal-adjacent state raise operational questions for the CRC and local enforcement: how did 80 machines go into rented retail space over two years before the case came together, and what does that timeline say about the capacity available to surface organized unlicensed activity dressed up in compliant-looking packaging. (Daily Voice; Patch)

Cannabis Caucus co-chairs Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced the Higher Education Marijuana Research Act on Monday. The bill would require DEA to prioritize universities and state entities in research licensing, create a DEA Office of University Relations, allow colleges in legal states to obtain cannabis for research directly from state regulators rather than the federal supply, and protect participating institutions from losing federal funds. It also funds two $15 million-per-year grant programs through 2030, one at NIH and one at USDA. Titus filed a similar version in the last Congress without advancement. The bill is narrower than rescheduling and narrower than SAFER Banking, which is the point. Even if rescheduling moves, the research infrastructure problem does not resolve itself. Studies still work from federally approved supply that does not resemble what consumers actually use, and universities in legal states still navigate DEA licensing designed for a Schedule I world. Whether this version gets floor time depends on whether House leadership sees research as a standalone issue worth moving or a placeholder that can wait for a larger cannabis vehicle. (Marijuana Moment; Omar press release)

The SEC has asked a federal court to order Vivera Pharmaceuticals, its CEO Paul Edalat, and Edalat-controlled EFT Global Holdings to disgorge roughly $2.1 million, with interest and civil penalties bringing the total north of $2.5 million, and is seeking a five-year officer-and-director bar against Edalat. The court granted summary judgment on liability last November, concluding that Vivera materially misrepresented the cannabis-derived license it used to raise approximately $6.6 million from 63 investors between May 2018 and June 2020. Edalat controlled both Vivera and the ostensible licensor, Sentar Pharmaceuticals, a conflict investors were not told about. Worth flagging for cannabis capital-formation watchers: the enforcement posture here is standard SEC securities fraud remedy, applied without any cannabis-specific softening, and the agency is pursuing personal accountability against a founder years after the underlying raise. The court's ruling on the remedy motion is the next procedural milestone. (Bloomberg Law; SEC)

💊 A Germany-focused industry survey of 3,528 patients found that 58.9 percent of those using prescription drugs before starting medical cannabis said they had been able to stop at least one of them, with stronger reductions among opioid users. The caveat is that this is patient-reported survey data paired with anonymized prescription data from Bloomwell's "Cannabis Barometer," which means it reads as a market and access signal rather than a clinical finding. That distinction will matter in Berlin, where lawmakers are actively debating whether to ttighten prescribing rules after a year of rapid growth. (Cannabis Health News)

Charlotte breweries that pivoted into hemp-derived THC beverages are bracing for a federal cliff. We all know the hemp ban takes effect November 12th and replaces the delta-9 THC threshold with a total THC standard capped at 0.4 milligrams per container. The U.S. Hemp Roundtable estimates it would wipe out roughly 95 percent of existing hemp cannabinoid products. At NoDa Brewing in Charlotte, the Happy Bird hemp-seltzer brand already accounts for about 11 percent of sales. The broader beverage category topped $1.1 billion nationally last year per Whitney Economics. Operators are split between those pushing for a federal carveout or extension and those already winding down inventory to avoid holding product past November. South Carolina is the closest state-level test of whether a carveout can hold, and as of today that test is in a legislative standoff. (WFAE; The Charlotte Ledger)

📰 British media coverage keeps reaching for moral panic on cannabis, but new YouGov polling suggests the UK public is further along than the tabloid framing admits. Support for full legalization and decriminalization combined outpaces support for keeping cannabis criminalized, and most respondents say prohibition does not prevent use. The gap matters because the political calendar in Westminster still moves off the headlines more than the crosstabs. (Business of Cannabis)

The South Carolina House rejected the Senate's hemp regulatory framework Wednesday, pushing the debate into a six-member conference committee with the legislative session winding down. The Senate bill, passed in March, would have allowed retail sales of hemp beverages with up to 5mg of THC behind the counter and restricted higher-potency drinks and gummies to liquor stores. The House instead advanced a bill that both limits hemp products to adults 21 and older and bans most hemp products outright, a contradiction lawmakers acknowledged was intentional, designed to give conferees maximum room to negotiate. Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said the Senate version was weaker than he wanted but established a real framework. Rep. Gil Gatch argued the chamber should focus narrowly on blocking youth access this session and leave taxation and broader regulation for later. Rep. Jay Jordan framed the House's approach as preserving "maximum flexibility and latitude for conference." Massey's concern is worth taking seriously: an age restriction without structural oversight leaves concentration limits, DUI provisions, and point-of-sale rules untouched. Conference committees can produce a compromise bill, a watered-down version, or a referral to the next session. Which of those comes out of this one shapes whether South Carolina has a hemp beverage framework before the federal ban takes effect November 12th. (WIS-TV)

Target has registered to lobby on hemp as the November 12th deadline on the new federal definition approaches. The registration puts the retailer in a coalition that already includes major alcohol distributors and trade groups. When a mass retailer decides a product category is worth federal lobbying, it changes the political read on who is asking Congress to move and how seriously the ask has to be taken. The coalition pushing for a regulated path now includes stakeholders who are harder to dismiss as niche industry, which raises the floor on what a congressional response has to look like if one materializes. (Cannabis Wire)